Family members of church slayings offer forgiveness, mercy to alleged attacker at hearing

Jeffrey Collins

Dylann Roof appears via video before a judge, in Charleston, S.C., Friday, June 19, 2015. The 21-year-old accused of killing nine people inside a black church in Charleston made his first court appearance, with the relatives of all the victims making tearful statements.

Image Credit: Centralized Bond Hearing Court via AP

June 20, 2015 - 12:57 PM

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Felecia Sanders survived the attack on her Bible study group by pretending to be dead, but lost her son Tywanza.

On Friday, she came face to face with the alleged shooter, as she had the night of the slaughter.

"We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms," Sanders told Dylann Storm Roof, who appeared via video conference for a bond hearing. "You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts ... and I'll never be the same."

"Tywanza was my hero."

And then Sanders did something remarkable: She forgave the young man who has been charged with nine counts of murder for the bloody attack at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

"As we said in Bible Study, we enjoyed you, but may God have mercy on you," she said.

Sanders was one of several family members of victims to be given a chance to address the court during Roof's bond hearing. Others also forgave him. They advised him to repent for his sins, and asked for God's mercy on his soul. One even told Roof to repent and confess, and "you'll be OK."

Hours after the bond hearing, thousands of people filled a basketball arena for a community vigil for the victims. Those in attendance were white and black, young and old.

"When I was a child, we still had Jim Crow segregation and I'm so thankful that it's so hard for my children to believe that this area was so segregated," said Lynda Scharborough, a white woman who brought her 5-year-old grandson to the vigil. She explained what happened at the church to her grandchild, in part because his summer camp across the street was closed for the week after the shooting.

"So he knows that bad part and we wanted him to see the good part, that everybody can come together even when something so horrible happens," Scharborough said.

A few rows away, Stella Mazyck, who is black, balanced her 4-year-old granddaughter Zarhiauna on her knee. Mazyck, 67, came with her children and grandchildren to "spread a little love."

"My job is I feel is that I need to show a good example for them because they are my next generation," Mazyck said.

The victims included the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator who doubled as the church's lead pastor, and eight others who played multiple roles in their families and communities: ministers and coaches, teachers and a librarian, counsellors and choir singers and the elderly sexton who made sure the church was kept clean.

A police affidavit released Friday accused Roof of shooting all nine multiple times, and making a "racially inflammatory statement" as he stood over an unidentified survivor.

The families are determined not to respond in kind, said Alana Simmons, who lost her grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Simmons.

"Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof — everyone's plea for your soul is proof they lived in love and their legacies will live in love, so hate won't win," she told Roof during the bond hearing. "And I just want to thank the court for making sure that hate doesn't win."

Roof bowed his head slightly. From the jail, he could hear them talking, but couldn't see them; the camera showed only the judge.

Roof's public defender released a statement from his family offering prayers and sympathy for the victims, and expressing "shock, grief and disbelief as to what happened that night."

"We have all been touched by the moving words from the victims' families offering God's forgiveness and love in the face of such horrible suffering," the statement said.

The comments in court seemed in keeping with a spirit evident on the streets of Charleston on Friday, where people built a memorial and thousands attended the vigil to repudiate whatever a gunman would hope to accomplish by attacking one of the nation's most important African-American sanctuaries.

"A hateful person came to this community with some crazy idea he'd be able to divide, but all he did was unite us and make us love each other even more," Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said as he described plans for the evening vigil at a sports arena.

A steady stream of people brought flowers and notes and shared sombre thoughts at a growing memorial in front of the church, which President Barack Obama called "a sacred place in the history of Charleston and in the history of America."

The Justice Department announced Friday that it is investigating whether it could be a hate crime or domestic terrorism. Agency spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the slayings were "undoubtedly designed to strike fear and terror into this community."

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the state will "absolutely" want the death penalty.

"This was an act of racial terrorism and must be treated as such," the Rev. Cornell William Brooks, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Friday in Charleston.

"This is a moment in which we say to them, the white nationalists movement, those purveyors of hate, we as Americans will not subscribe to that philosophy. We will not give up, we will not give in," Brooks said.

Roof had complained while getting drunk on vodka recently that "blacks were taking over the world" and that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race," according to Joey Meek, who tipped off the FBI when he saw his friend on surveillance images.

Roof also told him he used birthday money from his parents to buy a .45 Glock pistol before the attack, Meek said. The affidavit said Roof's father and uncle also called authorities after seeing surveillance photos, and that the father said Roof owned a .45-calibre gun.

Roof was arrested across the state line and returned in shackles to a county jail where he was being held next to the cell of Michael Slager, the white former police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of black motorist Walter Scott in neighbouring North Charleston.

It was the third arrest for Roof, who was quizzed by police in February after workers at the Columbiana shopping mall said he appeared dressed entirely in black, asking strange questions about employee movements and closing times. He was charged then with possessing suboxone, a drug typically used to treat heroin addiction. A trespassing charge was added after he showed up again in April, prompting a three-year ban from the mall.

Spilling blood inside the "Mother Emanuel" church, founded in 1816, evoked painful memories of the racist violence that black churches have so often suffered, and the values their congregations have tried to uphold in response.

"For me, I'm a work in progress and I acknowledge that I'm very angry," said Bethane Middleton-Brown, who appeared in court on behalf of her sister, the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor. "We have no room for hate. We have to forgive. I pray God on your soul. And I also thank God I won't be around when your judgment day comes with him."

Pinckney, 41, was a married father of two and a Democrat who spent 19 years in the South Carolina legislature. The other victims were Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; Doctor, 49; and the Revs. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; and Daniel Simmons Sr., 74.

OPINION Editor, This is a busy time of year, but I find it’s also a time of reflection, particularly as January marks the end of my two-year term as Chair and my 10 years serving on the Board of Interior